THE SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION
7
THE ART OF PANTOMIME :
BY BRANDER MATTHEWS
DRAWINGS BY HARRY STONER
HIS SUGGESTIVE study of ancient and
modern di'.nna, M. Eniilo Faguct, one of
(lie neatest of contemporary French
critics, dwells on the. fact that the drama
is the only one of the arts which ean
employ to advantage the aid of all the
other arts. The muses of tragedy and
comedy can horrow narrative from the
muse of epic poetry and song from the
muse of lyric poetry. They can avail themselves of
oratory, music and dancing. They can profit by the
assistance of the architect, the sculptor ami the
painter. They can draw on the co-operation of all
the. other arts without ceasing to he themselves and
without losing any of their essential qualities.
This was seen dearly by Wagner who insisted that
his niusie-dramas were really "the art of the future,"
in that they were the result of a combination of all
the arts under the control of the drama. Quite possi
bly the Greeks had the same idea, since Athenian trag
edy has many points of similarity to Wagner's music
drama; it had epic passages and a lyric chorus set to
music; it called for stately dancing against an archi
tectural background.
Hut although the muses of the drama may invoke
the help of their seven sisters, they need nut make
this appeal unless they choose. They can give their
performances on a bare plat
form or in the open air, and
thus get along without paint
in? and architecture. They
can disdain the support of
song and dance and music.
They can concentrate all
their effort upon themselves
and provide a piny which is
a piny and nothing else. And
this is what Ibsen has done
in his somber social-dramas.
Ghosts, for example, is inde
pendent of anything extrane
ous to the drama. It is a
play, only a piny and noth
ing more than a play.
Yet it is possible to reduce
Iho drama to an even barer
stnle thnn wo find in Ibsen's
gloomy tragedy in prose.
Ibsen's characters s p o a k.
They reveal themselves in
speech and it is by words that
they carry on the story. A
story can he presented on the
stage, however, without the
uso of words, without the aid of the human voice, by
tho employment of gesture only, by pure pantomime!
No doubt, the drama mnkes a great sacrifice when it
decides to do without that potent instrument of emo
tional appeal, the human voice; and yet it can find
its profit, now and then, in this self-imposed depriva
tion. Certain stories there are, not many and all of
them necessarily simplified and made very clear,
which gain by being bereft of the spoken word and
by being presented only in pantomime. And these
stories, simple as they must lie if they are to bo ap
prehended by sight alone without the aid of sound,
are nevertheless capable of supporting an actual play
with all the absolutely necessary elements of a drama.
In foregoing the aid of words the drama is only
reducing itself to its absolutely necessary elements
a story, and a story which can he shown in action.
A clever French critic once declared that the skeleton
of a good play is always pantomime. This is not quite
true, since there are plays the plot of which can not
bo coneyed to the audience except by actual speech.
Vet, some of the greatest plays have plots so trans
parent that the story is clear even if we fail to hear
what the actors are saying. It has been asserted Hint
if Hamlet, for example, were to bo performed in a
deal' and dumb asylum, the inmates would bo able to
understand it and to enjoy it. They would bo de-
prived of the wonderful beauty of Shakspere's lines,
no doubt, and they would scarcely he able to guess
at tho deeper significance of the philosophy which
enriches the tragedy; hut the story would unroll
itself clearly before t'heir eyes, so that they could
follow the succession of scenes with understanding.
Tho drama, in brief, can uso two kinds of poetry,
that which is internal and contained in the plot, ami
(hat which is external and confined to the language.
It can uso
"Jewels fivc-wonls hii,
That on the stretched forefuiycr of Time
Sjxnklc forever."
BUT it
S11I1IM'
A ilory can be preiented on the stage without the uie of words.
can also atlain poetry willioul the use ot
superb and sonorous phrases and by its choice of
theme alone. This is what tho poets have often felt ;
and as a result French poets, like Theophilo (laulier
and Francois Cop ice, have not disdained to compose
librettos for pantomimic ballets. Ono of the most su
cessful of the recent Kuss'tan ballets was simply a rep
resentation of Gautier's poet it: fantasy, Ono of
Cleopatra's Nights.
Perhaps because, tho pantomime contains only tho
essential element of tin,' drama action it has
always been a popular form of play and it appears
very early in the history of tho theater. Indeed, it
seems to be tho only form of
drama known to primitive
man, it we may judge lrom
observations made among
savages who are still in the
earlier periods of social de
velopmeut. Gesture pre
cedes speech, and a panto
mime was possible even be
fore a vocabulary was devel
oped. In tho Aleutian Isl
ands, for example, the pan
to'mime it the only form of
play known. One of the lit
tie pluys of tho islanders hns
been described. It was acted
by two performers only, one
representing n hunter and
tho other a bird. The hunter
hesitates, but finally kills the
bird with an arrow. Then la
is seized with regret that he
has slain so noble a bird.
Whereupon the bird revives
and (urns into a beaut i fill
woman and falls into tho
hunter's arms. This is only
A LA
by pure pantomime